{"id":74666,"date":"2019-02-20T11:17:00","date_gmt":"2019-02-20T09:17:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=74666"},"modified":"2019-02-20T11:17:00","modified_gmt":"2019-02-20T09:17:00","slug":"tobacco-demand-down-11-percent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2019\/02\/20\/tobacco-demand-down-11-percent\/","title":{"rendered":"Tobacco demand down 11 percent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><em>By Chimwemwe Mangazi:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_69832\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-69832\" style=\"width: 279px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/sadala-kaisi.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-69832\" src=\"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/sadala-kaisi-279x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"279\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/sadala-kaisi-279x300.jpg 279w, https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/sadala-kaisi.jpg 339w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 279px) 100vw, 279px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-69832\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">SADALA\u2014We need more buyers<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Tobacco Control Commission (TCC) has said demand for tobacco\u2014 Malawi\u2019s principal foreign exchange earner\u2014among buying companies in Malawi has declined by 11 percent recorded at 152 million kilogrammes (kg), down from 171 million kg last year.<\/p>\n<p>The figure is lower than that made in TCC\u2019s announcement in October 2018 that buying companies might be interested in buying 174.5 million kg of the crop this year.<\/p>\n<p>Tobacco production has dropped by 1.4 percent at 166.8 million kg when compared to the 169.2 million kg produced last year.<\/p>\n<p>TCC Chief Executive Officer, Kaisi Sadala, during a media conference yesterday, said the decline in demand could be stemming from increased volumes that the companies bought last year at 202 million kg, which was way higher than what they wanted.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><em>\u201cRemember that these are just estimates and the figures could continue to change\u2014 either go up or down\u2014as the crop\u2019s estimates from the first round show that 206.9 million kilogrammes of tobacco will be produced this year. However, the figures will be updated upon completion of the second round assessment starting from next week.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u201cIn view of these developments, the commission wishes to assure the farmers that the tobacco will be sold as the government has put in place enough measures to have the crop sold,\u201d<\/em> Sadala said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Figures from the commission further show that the number of farmers who registered to produce the crop this year has increased to 52,432, representing a 24-percent change when compared to 42,207 farmers who registered last year.<\/p>\n<p>Sadala attributed the increase in the number of the registered farmers to good prices which the crop fetched on the market last year.<\/p>\n<p>He said Chinkhoma, Limbe, Kanengo and Mzuzu markets would be used for marketing the crop this season, in addition to a satellite market at Kabwafu in Mzimba.<\/p>\n<p>The performance of tobacco on the market heightens calls for the country to diversify into other crops as the cash crop faces challenges due to fluctuating world prices and anti-tobacco smoking campaigns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Chimwemwe Mangazi: Tobacco Control Commission (TCC) has said demand for tobacco\u2014 Malawi\u2019s principal foreign exchange earner\u2014among buying companies in Malawi has declined by 11 percent recorded at 152 million kilogrammes (kg), down from 171 million kg last year. The figure is lower than that made in TCC\u2019s announcement in October 2018 that buying companies [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":74670,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74666"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74666\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74671,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74666\/revisions\/74671"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/74670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}